Bus prices rise .036 cents in Arequipa (OMG!)

Yes, begin the uproar. Boycott public transportation. It’s time to wear out your pair of shoes and hit the pavement. Fares on combis and buses have risen 10 to 20 centimos (.036 to .072$). Yes, you heard it here! Fares have risen about 7 cents max. And that is if you happen to pay with anything mroe than the exact fare. If you pay 60 centimos (.21$) you can still get away with the old fare. It is thought that soon you will not get away with this “shortchanging” of the fare. People are throwing fits and the talk radio stations are filled with talk of this.

Many people say its not affordable, not fair, etc etc. People say there should be a universitario fare of 50 centimos (.18$) for students. Some people are calling in saying there are certain routes in arequipa that are always 50 centimos and there should be no reason to have higher prices. It is said this rise in price is caused by inflated gas prices.  ConsumerAffairs.com says:

The national average price of self-serve regular today is $3.117a gallon, up from $3.095 last Friday, according to AAA’s Fuel Gauge Survey. The average price of diesel fuel has taken a sharp jump, rising to $3.413 a gallon, up from $3.359 last week.

I really haven’t noticed here the gas prices appear to be about the same. I could be wrong.  For 85 it I believe the price is still around 11/S. (3.96$) per litre. Yeah that’s expensive.  So a rise in fares should benefit drivers of public transportation.

It should be taken into consideration that these buses and combis are all small individually owned companies. They are small lines of a few buses or combis. Each route is in general a different company and that route is basically owned or at least that’s where they make their money. There are not other routes.

In comparison if your city raised fares a few cents you would laugh it off. But when a city faces budget crisis and cuts transportation and raises fares .25 to .50$ it’s a big deal. I lived in Cleveland, Ohio for all my 28 years taking only a few months to visit Peru (Lima) before.  Only this past year and a few months in 2007 did I use the public transportation system, mostly buses (RTA). The fares in 2007 at least in akron were 1.25$ They were reasonable I thought. In Cleveland, in 2010, fares were 2.25.  It was projected that the fares in Cleveland would be raised .50$.₁ I don’t believe this full increase occured as 2009 threatened another fare increase. ₂ While gas prices in July 2007₃ were 2.69$ per gallon in Ohio and gas prices (Speedway stations) currently are as low as 2.89$ per gallon in Xenia, all gas is no lower than 3.06$ per gallon in Cleveland.₄ Over the past 3 years however Cleveland and the nation had seen gas hit 4.00$ per gallon and in parts of the country much higher.

Yet there had been no previous increase in fare prices due to the price of gas. In the previous articles it states the problem Cleveland RTA has with losing passengers and money. Clearly the raise in fare is not completely associated with the price of gas. You may have read in the articles provided that the drivers are part of a union, have healthcare benefits and pay minimally out of pocket expenses for this coverage. It is not stated but employed by the city they more than likely have retirement benefits other than Social Security. It must be nice to have little higher education and have this job that is not a skilled trade. They drive a bus for christ sake! Sure not everyone does it. Sure it is not as easy as driving a car. Sure they likely need a commercial drivers license. Sure the riders are not always the most polite, most beautiful, best smelling persons that ever rode a bus. However the drivers also are rarely polite, rarely helpful, etc etc. Yet I’m very sure they made more money than many college graduates, with benefits no less! Me being one of them.

I stated earlier they have a union. Of course this means they get benefits, they get healthcare, they get “fair” wages, etc etc. All those fine things a union gives you. Sure a union was a good thing in the 1930′s when workers had 12 hour days without breaks, lunch and worked in horrible conditions. This day and age there isn’t sweat shop factories with young children. No, not here, not anymore. We’ve shipped all that over to third-world countries. But, these unions now allow many people to be lazy and get paid well with benefits. This bullshit is part of what is costly the city of Cleveland money.

Back to Arequipa, Perú. There is not a labor union for bus drivers. At best they get together and complain about how they arent making as much profit and decide as a group all the companies will raise fares. This is as close as it comes to a labor union for bus drivers or a labor union in general for that matter. To compare public transportation of Perú and that of the United States, sure, could be unfair. Hell, it is unfair.

I was talking yesterday on a combi, in English, in fact of how persons here in Perú are paid. The subject was getting your house painted and how if you wanted you could do it yourself or pay someone probably 20 dollars to paint your whole house. A project of this scale could probably take one person two to three days. Now you see the difference. Now you see perhaps why I spoke on this matter in English. I really didn’t want to speak in Spanish as a gringo how shitty people are paid. Surely a Peruvian would be thinking “No shit Sherlock!”.

That is how it is here. So, if you take these awesome wages that Peruvians make and mix that with the whole .o7$ rise in transportation fares you can see why there is such a stink being made. It will soon only be a matter of time where the population of Arequipa refuses to pay the increase and the combi and bus drivers for on strike. It may last a week. It could go on for a month or two.  It won’t affect me much but it will affect some 800,000 plus people here. when that occurs I will be walking (God knows I need it) or in some cases taking taxis for an average fare of 3 soles to maximum 6 or 7 soles.

christmas in aqp, new years in camana, and now not much going on

not much going on here its going on two months of me being here in arequipa/peru. the 29th will mark my 2nd month. I have managed to have 2 cameras stolen. well one wasnt mine nor really my fault.

I was walking downtown just before christmas maybe the 22nd. bad timings shit ton of people downtown looking for gifts, dirt cheap decorations, champagne, paneton, contraband liquors, who knows what else. basically you should carry valuables and if you do keep them better concealed. The latter was my problem. After my girlfriend met me at some casino downtown. casona villa fortuna (best casino in my mind in arequipa)… we went walking to look for a clothes hamper or something for the kitchen i forget. i had my camera in my pants pocket. It was annoying as i was wearing jeans that were a little tight and tighter with a camera in tow. I happened to be carrying my laptop with me as i had went to have lunch or something at capriccios on mercadores. they have free wifi. I had a small luggage lock on the large pocket containing my laptop. you know those tiny easy to break locks that come complementary (thank god right?) with your luggage. well i was too lazy and too much in a hurry i guess to stop inside of some bodega to open the lock and safely store my camera so i threw it in a smaller bag unlocked. unsafe. i was an easy target. It could not be how i think but i believe that someone clearly saw me do this because within two blocks some girl about 9 or 10 years old tells me my bag is open. great! just great! my girlfriend ask if i had anything inside. yeah! my camera. fuckers tole my camera. she though i was joking. would i be mildly fucking pissed if my camera wasnt stolen?

jump forward about 10 days. its the thurday before new years my gf and our friend drive to camana. we get there and park the car in front of the church across from the house we stayed in. took our things inside the house. everything is great! then we wanted to move the car into more shade. and voila the tire is flat front driver side. awesome. a sign of things to come?

our friend had never changed a tire i guess. I;ve had bad luck and had to change about 5 of my own. so i spend up the process x100 and got it done in a bout 15 minutes if not less. this after my gf had found all the parts we needed cuz he couldnt. it was kinda funny. so we got cleaned up washed the grease and stuff off and went for lunch in the main square. we really wanted cebiche from the market supposedly its good. they were closed as it was well after noon. so on we walked to plaza de armas. there were two cebicherias and we picked the one on the corner it had a pretty decent crowd we figured it must be ok. Me, a gringo, have made better cebiche. It was bad. no kick to the rocoto. i ordered a jalea mixta in contrast to the cebiches my friends had. this was bad too. there was fish. some other seafood i have never seen in a jalea and a few camarones. there wasnt any aji to put on it so we asked. it took forever i started to eat finally it arrived. it tasted faintly of hot rocoto or aji limo and more like celery or something mashed up. gross. we walked back one of the streets where we could take a combi to the beach and we arrived at the beach hopped in the ice cold water decided we had enough and wanted to get warm. so we chilled in the sun drinking cusqueña until about 5 then it got breezy and cold even in the sun. we returned home showered got dressed and ready to go out maybe ate something between that. probably about 8 we left for the plaza de arms with a bottle of majes pisco and some cifrut orange punch. we killed that bottle in a decent time and decided we have plenty of drinking left to do. was just me, my gf, and our friend. so we went to get abother bottle. great. we needed more mixed. i was supposedly to drunk to go so i stayed with my gf and our friend went. he returned later with some tampico and we got back to drinking. we killed the next bottle lots faster. then another friend arrived as he was en route to arequipa from lima with two friends. he had more pisco. awesome! we did a shot. i needed the bathroom. girl needed it too. we went. womens was full so i invited her in since i wasnt going to shit in a public bathroom. I was surprised and she was happy the mens room had a seat. We porbably would have fucked in there but for some reason on the way she had gotten irritated. I thought it was fine but when we left she was still irritated. I dont know about what. she wanted a kiss so i did. then was wanted otro, and otro, and yapa, and yapita. and sometimes that just annoys me. she got more annoyed. more like furious. i guess it was the tequila talking or in this case the pisco. i grabbed carlos and was like WE HAVE TO GO. somehow in maybe 10 minutes of bathroom break he is stumbling drunk. what the fuck. now i must deal with a furious drunk gf, and my drunk friend. she was no help. she just got more mad that i was allowing him to lean on my shoulder since he couldnt barely stand. we were walking to slow for here and i dont know what else.

then it really got worse i dont know what i said something like calm down, come back here, dont want so fast. after all some help would have been great. it never arrived she got more mad screaming i can go fuck whatever girl i want and i dont know what else. it was quite an abusive tirade she threw. i was drunk but not too stupid. however i had enough of insults and was trying to calm her down only to recieve more insults. i think i grabbed her arm trying to get her to walk with us. she continued mad and whatever else. whatever. I was walking home! so i left them. then about 10 or 15 minutes after arriving home im still waiting for them. shit. something happened, theyre lost. who knows. i start walking back calling their names. I hear nothing. im getting kind of worried. i walk around some of the corners close to the house. nothing. then i come back towards the house and our friend is stumbling dow the middle of the street. i call his name no response so i go up behind his stumbling ass and get him. he’s kinda fucked up his face was cut up around his eye brows. i ask him what happened where is my gf etc. he knows nothing. what the fuck thank god we were in front of the police station.

I take him there and the guy comes to the door and is trying to figure out what happened. neither of us know i explain in what was probably great but drunken spanish i left them to walk and here i find him and my gf isnt here. in a minute or two a cop in a truck comes by i dont think he was called he jsut happen to come by and the officer with us ran out. i ran out. I had already told the cop i wasnt she if i could trust my friend i really didnt know him well. i ask the other cop if he had seen a chascosa about 4 cm shorter than me and he said sube. so i entered and he knew exactly where she was. huddling under an entrance to a house scared as shit. I guess my friend had fallen or something and hit his head on the ground. or that a group of 4 or 5 people came over to start some shit and they roughed him up. She isnt quite sure but someone grabbed the camera which she had between her tits or had fallen out when a guy was chasing her. something along those lines. other than scared shitless she was fine.

I was scared for them. more scared for her.

next time i’ll try not to leave her like that even if shes with a good friend but there is only so much stupidity, screaming, and verbal abuse i can take. I guess our friend went to the hospital in the morning while we slept. he got 4 or 5 stiches and some antibiotics.

we didnt do much that friday (new years eve) slept most the afternoon often and on hungover as shit. we finally we feeling better enough to keep some food and gatorade down. we felt better after that. we later went out and bought fireworks with the 2 kids that lived where we were staying and lit them up around midnight. we kept new years eve and day low key, quiet. sunday we returned to lima after waking up and getting the tire fixed for the return trip.

everything has been alright, quiet, boring and eventful but kinda ll the same day after day. im still waiting to get a job in geology. my girlfriend got her period after being about a day or two later than the last. she had forgot a couple pills and took them the following morning so that had us both kinda scared. all is good now.

now i must apologize for all that read this. i suck at writing and almost failed every highschool english class. it makes sense that i like spanish lots more. oh and aced my spanish in college. so for those reasons my paragraphs are huge. my sentantes probably runons and really i dont care to capitalize every fucking sentance and put commas where they should be and who knows what else.

http://elgringomasperuanodelmundo.wordpress.com

2 weeks into arequipa

I have been in peru for 15 days now and really only in arequipa for 12 days i think. I think have finally came down with whatever stomach bacteria that wreaks havoc on gringos. For the past week or so i have had a grubling stomach but nothing bad that i thought about it.

Saturday night while walking downtown I had a Kris. Its some stupid new fruit punch like cifruit. It made my stomach upset with probably 15 minutes. I thought maybe it was the acid in the drink upsetting me. I dont really know. I felt like those really acid burps would begin. They kinda did an hour later. I ate chocolate croissants and ice cream like nothing bad would happen.

It did though. At about 3am I woke up with the feeling I had to shit and vomit. Great. I looked for a bucket outside and my stomach couldnt wait any longer. A “utility sink” became a vomit receptacle. My next trip was to the bathroom. That faired a little better.

Sunday I felt good. I decided I would make spaghetti and meat sauce. We went to the market to stock up on veggies and stuff for the week. Also got some ground beef and meat chunks. Can I note I dont like buying meat at the market. Its probably cheaper but its also always crawling with flies. This time the ground beef the woman scooped half a kilo from was sitting on top of the fridge unit instead of inside of it. Great. I really dont want to eat any more meat unless it is bought from Wong, Super, or Plaza Vea. At least when I see it in a package i feel better and well most places have raw anticuchos sitting out and thats not covered in flies so i feel better yet.

Back to the spaghetti. I got some onions and garlic together and had them going with some oil cooked them about half way then added white wine cooked them a little more but not yet all the way. I then added the simmering tomatoes to the blended with the onions and blended it all up. I like a rather smooth sauce except for the beef. I cooked the beef later added it to the sauce mixture. I added some about a half cup dry oregano, some salt and pepper, a little too much sugar, some bay leaves, anis and a few pieces of rosemary. End product was full of ground beef, boiled down nicely, but a little sweet. I made garlic bread which of course had lots of garlic. my signature and covered with grated parmesean. I died.

Now monday morning I wake up at about 9 and I am dying. I think i shit for 15 minutes. Lovely.

I hope its just a side effect of eating lots of tomato. some reason my stomach doesnt like lots of boiled tomatoes.

I´ll be praying the next 2 days.

Derek Jeter vs Jhonny Peralta (alt. title 25mil vs 10.75/2yrs)

I think its rediculous Jeter wants that much im sure half the country thinks the same.

1 jeter has 7 years on peralta

2 he is already declining.

3 their defense is about the same and jhonny has more pop than jeter even given the new yankee stadium HR rate.

4 Jeter is kinda classy I guess but he done lost his mind!

feliz navidad!

christmas day was rather uneventful. Went to church on the 24th and dinner on the 25th at my aunts and had to tolerate a whole bunch of screaming spoiled brats. The days before christmas were amazing though. my wonderful enamorada made me some sweet cards and sent me some cute photos. Truly my best christmas gift ever and the best art of my holiday.

Happy Turkey Day!

Today is the day of American Thanksgiving. The day of gorging on turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, pies and the like. It’s also the day before all hell breaks loose at American retail stores. It’s the day before Black Friday.

Well my Thanksgiving this year was rather normal I suppose. I made Suspiro Limeña which is a Peruvian dessert that is like a custard with merengue on top. It is very sweet and is one of those desserts that you can feel diabetes setting in as you eat it and after so much you realize you should stop eating or you will go into organ failure. However its delicious. I washed mine today with a can of pepsi. Just what a dentist will advise you against!

I went to my aunts house for thanksgiving dinner. I didn’t eat all the normal stuff. I stuck to a croissant, some fresh raw vegetables, and a cup of coffee. See, the previous night my family cooked partridge, potatoes, gravy and all the rest. I didnt need two super calorie laden dinners in a row. I’m on a diet, in loose terms. However, I’ve decided that if I will be on some loosely defined diet I will at least not gorge on food during the two most fattiest days of the year. I will refrain from putting slices of turkey breast on my plate and making a mashed potatoe dam around them and filling the “resevoir” with gravy and corn. You see, this is how it must be done. At 27 years old I still do that. But for I guess the last 23 years that’s how it’s been done.

Today there were also no questions, no lame games, nothing that normal puts me to sleep and requires a bottle/s of sanity depending on their contents (alcohol content, volume, etc).

Now I sit at home writing my first blog in some months. It’s been really a really uneventful past few months. So there has been a gap in posts. Sorry for like the few people that may stumble across this.

Well now I leave with a photo of my suspiro limeña.

The Cardinals Dilema

Kyle Lohse or John Smoltz? The question should be rather is Ryan Franklin really worth putting on the post season roster? I know the other day I dogged on Justin Masterson just before he pitched a gem. But seriously now, let’s take a look at Ryan Franklin’s September stats. In 8.1 innnings pitched Franklin has allowed 7 ER, 13 hits, 8 BB, 9 Ks which equates to a 7.56 ERA, a 2.52 WHIP, .382 BA. Absolutely ugly numbers. This is the last month of the season where everyone pushes for the post season. It appears that Ryan Franklin has lost his touch. While Smoltz started off real shaky in Boston, he has came back over to the NL and put up decent numbers. Kyle Lohse isn’t great by any means. Both will be okay. Dump Franklin because in October you can’t afford to post numbers like he has in the past month. Put Smoltz back in the closers role. He’s been there before. Use Lohse in long relief or where ever you need him. And if Smoltz gets injured then Franklin can be put back on the post season roster. If Smoltz just faulters have someone take out his knees a la Nancy Kerrigan and then Franklin can come back. In my eyes though this may be the best way to solve the situation the Cardinals are in.

Indians massacred long ago, axed Wedge today.

The Cleveland Indians finally decided to fire manager Eric Wedge. That’s great! But, why did they hold off for so long? Why did they lie and say we’re sticking with Wedge only to fire him now?

Now we can only hope that the same is done to Marc Shapiro. What good free agent signings has he made? What good trades has he made? The improvements made were not improvements at all but rather picking up other teams junk! We traded for Mark DeRosa to rent that has-been for half a season I really cant think of any other decent trades. Oh, Andy Marte in the Coco Crisp deal? Splendid.

Victor Martinez continues to tear it up in Boston. Lee with the exception of a couple outings has duplicated his 2008 performance. Meanwhile Carlos Carrasco and Justin Masterson have blown up effectively.

If the Indians are willing they can pay me 25% of Wedge’s or Shapiro’s salaries to do their jobs. Surely I could perfom about as well as they did.

I am so dumb sometimes.

I am a member of Delta’s frequent flyer club. They have an associated program that earns you miles by dining at specific restaurants. You can earn double miles by dining at some of those and earn monthly bonuses also. They also have other bonuses. This month it was possible to earn 500$ in miles.

One entry per dine. One entry per dine at a restaurant you never been too. One entry per 50$ spent. Also I believe an entry could be earned by completing a survey.

So the month of september when I chosed to dine out I decided to dine atthe restaurants I have not yet visited. That way I could get the most potential rewards from the dine. I also dined one M, T or W to double my rewards more.

I checked my reward status today and it seems that I did not update my debit card when I had a new one sent out to me. So all the dines I made were not recognized and I will receive no points. Its not a big deal but it was probably worth about 100$ in airmiles that I missed out on and potentially missing out on the sweeps they had going.

More im a bit upset because I went out my way for it. And well when you plan something to find out that it was all in vain you become more upset.

latinos, pride, and knowledge

A generalized thought of how Peruvians have to much pride, act like they know everything.

My ex girlfriend is limeña (from lima). When the earthquake struck in 2007 we were not on good terms but I still loved her and was very much worried. I called her kinda frantically when I heard about it to see if she had made it home ok. I believe she was still at the office because everything was chaotic and they couldn’t leave yet or something.

Later in the night we talked again and I tried to call her fears eventually getting annoyed because she kept going on about how things like that always happen in Perú. Perú is poor, this and that and it always happens, and we’re so poor and waaaaaaaaaaa. A big sob story/ pity party.

She tried to tell me that a big earthquake is said to strike Lima any at time and that it would be worse than the 2007 quake. I told her that she probably wouldn’t experience such a quake again in her lifetime. She spoke otherwise about this earthquake with a tone like would Perú break off into the ocean before California. She stated it’s a reason she wants to leave Perú. It was one among 100′s of reasons. Reasons like wanting to afford luxury. In short scheme of things she was a pituca that lived in Zarate. It’s an oxymoron, but its how it is. She wasted money on many things, purses, laptop, cell phones from claro and nextel, clothes, always something new she was buying. Yet she always complained of not making enough. Not being paid fair etc etc etc. Funny, she was doing better than me. Well now she has her wish shes slaving away in Spain instead of slaving away in Perú. I’m sure Spain is happy with that as they are not usually happy with South Americans working in Spain. Don’t take this the wrong way but I have a friend in Spain that asked why I like sudacas so much. I had to search for this word as I’ve never heard it before. It didn’t take long to for me to find it’s an offensive term. Moreso a racist term.

It seems that Spain doesn’t like bricheras either. Imagine that.

So you get the point I think. How does this girl go ahead and talk to me about geology? She studied administration. I have my geology degree. She even stated she’s Peruvian she knows how things are. As if being Peruvian is all that relevant and makes me less educated on the subject.

I really do get a crack out of the how Peruvians and even other latinos can be very ignorant to facts and think they know everything because of their pride. Really?

So here’s some geological information from wikipedia. I had stumbled upon a page about something in Lima and ended up reading about the 2007 quake which for some reason sparked this aggrevation again.

This earthquake occurred at the boundary between the Nazca and South American tectonic plates, which are converging at a rate of 78 mm (3.1 in) per year. The earthquake occurred as thrust faulting on the interface between the two plates, with the South American Plate moving up and seaward over the Nazca Plate. Experts say this kind of earthquake is produced about once every 100 years.^[13]

Coastal Peru has a history of very large earthquakes. The August 15 shock originated near the source of two previous earthquakes, both in the magnitude 8 range occurring in 1908 and 1974. This earthquake is south of the source of a magnitude 8.2 earthquake that occurred in northern Peru in 1966 and north of a magnitude 8.3 earthquake that occurred in 2001 near Arequipa in southern Peru. The largest earthquake along the coast of Peru was a magnitude 9 that occurred in 1868. It produced a tsunami that killed several thousand people along the South American coast and also caused damage in Hawaii.^[2]